1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to porous silica and a preparation method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to mesoporous silica and a preparation method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Mesoporous silica materials of high surface areas and well-ordered pore structures have potential applications in separation, catalysis, microelectronic device and enzyme immobilization. SBA-15 material of two-dimensional channeling pores arranged in hexagonal p6mm structure has received great attention because of its relatively large pore and high hydrothermal stability in comparison to MCM-41, its analog in M41S family.
The diameter of the channeling pores of SBA-15 can be varied in 3-10 nm, while the length is usually in the scale of micrometers. Molecular diffusion through the lengthy mesochannels, and pore blockage along the channels are the main concern when applying these materials for sorption and catalysis. Several papers have unveiled the preparation of pure siliceous SBA-15 materials with short mesochannels in the sub-micrometer level by adding either co-surfactant, co-solvent, electrolytes or organosilanes into the first synthesis solutions, but only one of them described the preparation of amino-functionalized mesoporous SBA-15 (Sujandi; Park, S. E.; Han, D. S.; Han, S. C.; Jin, M. J.; Ohsuna, T. Chem. Commun. 2006, 4131). Nevertheless, the method was limited to preparing SBA-15 silica with a narrow amino-loading, only in the range of 5-10% in terms of NH2 to SiO2 molar ratio.